


for the last time conscience calls

by redledgers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Natasha recaptured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9705914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: Natasha's taken back instead of The Winter Soldier.





	

**Author's Note:**

> giveaway fic for surprisinglyattached on tumblr  
> title from Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Fall Down"

It’s dark, the only light spilling from beneath the door, coming in through the hallway. The braces are cold on her wrists and she thinks for a moment that she must be growing soft if temperature affects her (in truth, she forgets how much she’s broken from her mold and how hard it will be to push back into it). From a speaker overhead, she hears a voice crackle. “Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Welcome back.” 

What a welcome it was, with ropes and bruises and a countdown until everything went black and she woke up somewhere else, someone else. Why fight something that does not wish to harm you? And it does wish to harm her but she cannot be aware of that, not as she exists, not as they intend. She is sent out on a mission, and told she has three days.

Four days later she is in a vaulted box, strapped to a chair, but this time a concerned man stands before the windows, watching with a furrowed brow. He’s been pacing about the room for a better part of an hour and she can’t tell why, the whole jumble of events that led here are scattered fragments, the thread too wispy to pull them back. His face is familiar though, and she thinks perhaps he was a target, an obstacle…a lover? She shakes her head.

Tapping on the glass makes her growl and snap her head up, eyes feral. But she is broken, worn out, and they know it. She meets the gaze of the man who’s been there the whole time, tilts her head and twists her wrists in a final attempt to slip free from the vises holding them in place. She can hear his words through the glass “I’m sorry Natasha, you should be out soon, I didn’t think you should be in there in the first place but I couldn’t fight it…” and on he goes, apologizing for something she doesn’t understand.

A hiss indicates the box is opening, the sides and top receding, After a second, the vises snap open and she feels free, but she doesn’t make to lunge at him, not the way he’s looking at her. He offers a hand, tells her if she wants to sleep there’s a bed in a room nearby, and that he can get her greasy pizza if she wants that too. She wrinkles her nose, but accepts the bed. The callouses of his hands are familiar and she recoils, choosing instead to get down herself, only stumbling once. Before he can say anything, she glares at him. 

Yet, something in her is cracking, splitting apart in hairline fractures and spilling out. She straightens and follows to the soft embrace of a SHIELD issued bed, not caring that in any other circumstance it might be uncomfortable. When she wakes again this time, there is a note directing her to showers, a bag of clothes that look suspiciously like ones she once owned, and a still warm burger from a fast food restaurant.

Later she will see this for what it was, an act of love and trust despite the jello that was her senses, the wild nature churning through her veins (it still lingers but it is Natasha this time, not Natalia). Later, she will understand how better to steel herself against those who want to take her from where she knows she belongs.


End file.
